Gumbo

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

"The law does not really apply at the top — Lois Lerner and the rest
of the criminals at the IRS aren’t going to jail, they’re cashing
six-figure checks, with bonuses, for pity’s sake. When Obamacare hits
the skids, the president just makes up new law as he goes along. Hillary
Clinton runs amok with no real consequence. On the larger scale, the
federal government spends a generation failing to enforce its
immigration laws and, once the problem has become large enough, simply
decides — presto-change-o! — that that which was a serious crime is
retroactively hunky-dory.

"The people in the middle cannot go about their ordinary business —
working at a job, driving a car, renting or owning a home, traveling —
without preemptively complying with all manner of government mandates.
But millions of illegals can flout the law with impunity — and their
well-off enablers in Washington can flout the law with impunity, too.
When the law does not apply to the lawmakers and law-enforcers, you are
not being governed: You are being ruled. And we are ruled by criminals.

"If you treat IRS rules the way the IRS treats IRS rules, you go to
prison; if you treat federal law the way the secretary of state does,
you go to prison. If you treat immigration controls the way our
immigration authorities do, you go to prison. If you’re as careless in
your handling of firearms as the ATF is, you go to prison. You cook your
business’s books the way the federal government cooks its books, you go
to prison."

1. Don't try "winning" an argument. Even if you manage to tear apart someone else's argument, you don't actually achieve anything. Carnegie cites the old saying, "A man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still." If you're looking to actually persuade somebody, avoid an argument in the first place.

2. Let the other person do most of the talking. The average person enjoys speaking about himself more than any other topic, and if you're engaging someone who has a lot to say, they're not going to listen to you until they've put it all out there. Listen more than you speak.

3. Figure out why the other person thinks what they do. The person you're trying to convince can be objectively wrong about something, but they believe what they do for a reason, and that doesn't necessarily make them a bad person. "Ferret out that reason — and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality," Carnegie writes.

4. Determine how their beliefs work in their favor. Behind every closely-held opinion is a lifetime that has led to that person's conclusion. It's in your interest to sympathize with the way the belief in question fits into the other person's worldview, and how that worldview is a complex machine driving the other person through life.

I've selected the items that give you something to do until you can extricate yourself from the conversation. Trying to change someone's mind is impossible. If you need to say something while you're doing the above, the best is: "That's very interesting."

Everybody uses Google for searching the Web, and many use it for email, maps, calendars and more. We treat it as a utility.

Perhaps that is a mistake. Is Google entirely neutral politically?

The question arises, because the tech giant is considering listing search results, not on popularity as it currently does, but on whether they are "correct." Google decides what is factual. It already does this with medical searches.

About facts, we can muse:

"The truth is more important than the facts." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." ~ Mark Twain

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe." ~ Andy Rooney

"Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts." ~ Charles M De Talleyrand

A former Google officer is the president’s chief technology adviser. Google employees contributed more to President Obama’s re-election than did employees of any other company except Microsoft. Google lobbyists met with Obama White House officials 230 times. By comparison, lobbyists from rival Comcast have been admitted to the inner sanctum a mere 20 or so times in the same period.

Oh, and on Election Night 2012, guess where Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was? Working for the president. In the president’s campaign office. On a voter-turnout system designed to help the president get re-elected.

“On Election Night [Schmidt] was in our boiler room in Chicago,” Obama lieutenant David Plouffe told Bloomberg News, in a story that revealed that for the campaign, Schmidt “helped recruit talent, choose technology and coach the campaign manager, Jim Messina, on the finer points of leading a large organization.”

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He is known mainly for composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.

This piece enjoys well-founded popularity, performed at many sacred events, including Christmas. It has been recorded on almost one hundred CDs. As with many other pieces of the Baroque era, it has been performed in historically-performed instrumentation, even with the use of an all-female choir to simulate choral conditions at the Pietà.

Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have found that dozens of popular Android apps collected device location (including GPS coordinates accurate to within 50 meters) an average of 6,200 times, or about every three minutes during a two-week study period.

Even when an app provides a useful-location based service, some of those requested the data more often than would be needed to provide that service, researchers said.

For example: Groupon Inc’s app requested one participant’s coordinates 1,062 times in two weeks. Does Groupon need to know where you are? Sure, when you’re acvitely trying to find a deal. But the rest of the time…?

“Does Groupon really need to know where you are every 20 minutes?” asked Norman M. Sadeh, a Carnegie Mellon professor who co-wrote the study. “The person would have to be accessing Groupon in their sleep.”

In another part of the study, The Weather Channel’s app requested device location an average 2,000 times, or every 10 minutes during the study period. Which, unless you are really nervous about a storm ruining your outdoor party or an oncoming tornado, seems a bit excessive.

If you’re wondering, the research didn’t include comparable results from
iOS users, because unlike Android which groups all its permissions for
apps en masse — you can’t download an app if you don’t agree to all its
permissions — iOS devices allow for users to adjust what data is
collected by an app on an individual basis (click here for more on how to do so).

It’s no secret why app developers want to cull as much location data as
they can get, with marketers paying good money for online ads that can
be targeted to individual users based on location information. That
might mean an ad or a coupon for a retailer could pop up on the
company’s app if it detects a user is nearby or even inside a store.

Michael Brown, a keyboardist and songwriter who at 16 was a writer of
the 1966 hit “Walk Away Renee” for his band the Left Banke and composed
“Pretty Ballerina” for it as well, died on Thursday at his home in
Englewood, N.J. He was 65.

"This song was recorded by the band The Left Banke in 1966. It was written by the group's then 16-year-old keyboard player Michael Brown (real name Michael Lookofsky), Tony Sansone and Bob Calilli.

The song features a flute solo played during the instrumental bridge of the middle portion of the song. Michael Brown got the idea for the flute solo from The Mamas & the Papas song "California Dreamin'" which had been recorded in November 1965 but wasn't a hit and in heavy rotation until early 1966. The arrangement also includes a lush string orchestration, a memorable harpsichord part, and a descending chromatic bass melody which led critics to refer to the group's sound as Baroque pop, "Bach-Rock" or Baroque n Roll.

The session was produced by Brown's father, jazz and classical violinist Harry Lookofsky, who also led the string players.

The song is one of a number Brown wrote about Renée Fladen-Kamm, then-girlfriend of The Left Banke's bassist Tom Finn
and object of Brown's affection. She was associated with the band for a
few weeks, and described as a free-spirited and tall blonde. The song
was written one month after Brown met her.

"Walk Away Renee" was one of a series of love songs the infatuated Brown wrote after meeting his newfound muse. Other songs written about her include the band's second hit "Pretty Ballerina"
and "She May Call You Up Tonight". After decades of obscurity, she was
identified in 2001 as a noted singer, vocal teacher and artist on the
West Coast.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

~ William Butler Yeats

I realized back in 2010 that a second Obama term was to be dreaded because he would then be released from the need to answer to the electorate at all. But the electorate bears some responsibility too, as does the press and Congress. Why oh why are not more people screaming out that the emperor has been completely naked for quite some time now? And that really wouldn’t be strong enough, either, because a naked emperor may just be a fool (with foolish subjects willing to play along). This naked emperor is also malevolent.

The “why oh why” is rhetorical on my part; I suppose I know the answer. But in a more basic way it still puzzles me, because as things become worse and worse, and Obama’s actions more extreme and more revelatory, I keep thinking there must be a tipping point, both for the press and the public as well as Congress.

But even that is probably an illusory hope. Events make me more cynical, but I don’t seem to be able to ratchet my cynicism up quickly enough to meet them.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Inflammation is the swelling and redness around a wound. It's the body's response to injury, and it's a good thing.

However, inflammation can get out of hand and become chronic. This is not a good thing. Chronic inflammation can eventually cause several diseases and conditions, including some cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, periodontitis, and hay fever.

Something to talk with your doctor about.

Dr. Brent Bauer of the Mayo Clinic says that we can help ourselves by eating right.

Some people advocate an "anti-inflammatory diet." Although there's
less evidence such diets work to directly thwart inflammation, most of
the recommended foods are typical of the Mediterranean style of eating
and in principle are good choices. Key components of the Mediterranean
diet include:

Eating generous amounts of fruits and vegetables

Consuming healthy fats, such as olive oil and canola oil

Eating small portions of nuts

For some, drinking red wine in moderation

Eating fish on a regular basis

Consuming very little red meat

Well, these things will certainly do no harm. Here are some other foods said to be good for inflammation.

Tart Cherries. Studies show that these delicious, tart-sweet cherries can reduce pain from arthritis and post-exercise soreness. One study showed the fruit has the highest anti-inflammatory content of any food.

Turmeric. This deep marigold root is a component of curry and offers anti-inflammatory benefits. Curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, has been shown to be beneficial in treating the symptoms of Crohn's disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and stomach ulcers.

Blueberries. These contain anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant that fights inflammation and may help reduce the risk of heart disease
and cancer. Thanks to their polyphenol content (including
anthocyanins), blueberries are quite promising for helping to reverse
age-related declines in cognitive and motor function.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The cacao pod from which chocolate is made is a rich source of healthful polyphenols, and now researchers have found a different way of processing the cocoa that will keep more of those components while maintaining that delicious chocolaty flavor we all know and love.

From a cocoa tree to a candy bar, chocolate undergoes a radical transformation. Workers pick pods from the cacao tree, then remove the bitter seeds from inside the pods to be fermented, then dried in the sun. The dried seeds are then roasted and combined with sugar, milk and other ingredients to create the final product. The delicious stuff loses some of its nutritious components during this process, such as polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties that have been shown to help stave off cancer and heart disease.

To preserve more antioxidant activity, the researchers decided to add one extra step to the chocolate production process: storing the pods for a few days after they're harvested but before removing the seeds to be fermented and dried.

Tthe researchers tested different storage times for 300 pods. They found that the ideal storage time was seven days; when the seeds were then processed as usual after that storage time, they maintained more antioxidants than seeds that were not stored or were stored for more time. The researchers believe that the stored beans were higher in antioxidants because they had the time to absorb more nutrients from their outer husks, but not so much time that they started to break down.

The researchers also wanted to assess the effect of roasting, long thought to decrease chocolate’s nutritional value.

They found that seeds had higher antioxidant activity when they were roasted at a slightly lower temperature for a longer time, and the seeds from pods that had been stored for seven days performed best. Not only was the resulting chocolate more nutritious, the researchers stated, but it actually tasted sweeter, again likely because the bitter seeds spent more time in contact with the sweet pulp of the pod. The researchers plan to continue their work to fine-tune the roasting process in the future.

"The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came
over the weekend, when U.S. Special Forces were forced to evacuate a
base from which they had operated against the local branch of al Qaeda.
This is the same branch that has long been considered to pose the most
direct threat to Europe and the United States.

"So who should Barack Obama be declaring war on in the Middle East other than the state of Israel?
"There
is an upside-down quality to this president’s world view. His
administration is now on better terms with Iran—whose Houthi proxies,
with the slogan “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn
the Jews, power to Islam,” just deposed Yemen’s legitimate
president—than it is with Israel. He claims we are winning the war
against Islamic State even as the group continues to extend its reach
into Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.

"He treats Republicans in the
Senate as an enemy when it comes to the Iranian nuclear negotiations,
while treating the Russian foreign ministry as a diplomatic partner. He
favors the moral legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council to
that of the U.S. Congress. He is facilitating Bashar Assad’s war on his
own people by targeting ISIS so the Syrian dictator can train his fire
on our ostensible allies in the Free Syrian Army.

"He was
prepared to embrace a Muslim Brother as president of Egypt but maintains
an arm’s-length relationship with his popular pro-American successor.
He has no problem keeping company with Al Sharpton and tagging an
American police department as comprehensively racist but is nothing if
not adamant that the words “Islamic” and “terrorism” must on no account
ever be conjoined. The deeper that Russian forces advance into Ukraine,
the more they violate cease-fires, the weaker the Kiev government
becomes, the more insistent he is that his response to Russia is
working.

"To adapt George Orwell’s motto for Oceania: Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory."